


A fallen tree still has roots

by Washedawaycloud



Series: Ripples of Bad Wolf [10]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Depression, Female Friendship, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, again if you squint, flirting if you tilt this sideways and squint a bit, or just know depression, trapped in the parallel universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:41:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Washedawaycloud/pseuds/Washedawaycloud
Summary: Meanwhile in the Alternate Universe Parallel Universe...
Relationships: Rose Tyler & The Corsair, Rose Tyler/The Corsair
Series: Ripples of Bad Wolf [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050176
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	A fallen tree still has roots

She no longer dreams of him, and it’s devastating to a degree that the Corsair swore she would never again experience. Before the Doctor, there had been Nuriel, beautiful, wonderful, tragic, Nuriel in her first life. When she’d been loomed, she’d been male, quite happily so. Running through the stars she’d met him, and he took a shine to her.

Implausibly impossible, the pair of them. Nuriel had stars in his eyes, moonlight for skin, and supernova colored hair. He was soft-spoken, firm, and by the book. One had been gaining his sea legs, still trying to shake the conventions of a world that he didn’t quite fit into. Telepath meets psi-null being and they are so fascinated with one another they run into the stars together.

And when Nuriel was gone, after weathering the regeneration that took him to her, a pleasant surprise to be sure, she does quite enjoy being female when the roulette wheel gives her that, she’d been a wreck. Truthfully, the months before he took himself to the beyond, had been horrible. For the both of them. Twenty years together, destroyed by a fixed point, and guilt.

Now, she is adrift again.

“Cora, get up.” Rose’s voice barely lifts the fog of her depression. It’s been months since landing here. Months of utter silence within her mind and she can’t do this.

“Go ‘way.” She’d even reawaken her northern burr to try and hold onto pieces of Gallifrey. It didn’t work well. But it was comforting, in its own way.

“No.”

“Leave!”

“No.” Rose shoves hard at the Corsair to turn her over on the bed. “Listen to me, it’s been six months. I’ve got work, I got us a flat, and you’re… killing yourself slowly. I haven’t seen you eat once. Not once! You think he wants this? You think I pulled all the strings I did at the Game Station for you to just wither?”

Amber eyes bore into her own and the woman on the bed winces. “Rose…”

“Don’t you _Rose_ , me. Get up. Get a shower. We’re finding you a job, someplace where you can build us a ship. I’m not living the rest of my life like this.”

The Corsair grimaces. She can’t even _see_ timelines here, can barely feel them. She’s little more than a human in that sense now. Useless. Blind. Broken in a myriad of ways.

“Cora!”

“Just…just let me wither.” Her words are soft and so heavy with emotion it shocks her. Does she want to die? Just lay down and let the life drain out of her? After all she’s done, the hell she survived – can she really just do that?

“No!” Rose looks like she might slap her. But she doesn’t, her face relaxes, her whole body relaxes in a way that says she’s forcing herself to do it. Rolling shoulders, jumping jaw. “You don’t get to die here, alone. We’re going home. I need you to get me home, and you need me too.”

Fingertips brush her face, tracing it, pausing at her temples. The shock of muted contact makes the Corsair startle. Properly startle. Amber eyes bore into green. “This timeline is different. _We_ – Cor, let me help you.”

“I –“

“Of all the things I did as Bad Wolf, I remember seeing you there. The Golden light that you walked out of. I remember how sad you looked when you pulled me from the Doctor, you put me to sleep. But I saw you again. At the console. It’s the barest hint of a memory, more like a dream but you were there. I feel the words on you. We don’t end here, Corsair.”

She laughs a sodden sound and presses her face into the pillow. How did _he_ ever resist this hurricane in human skin?

“I’ll try.” She offers because she’s not so silly as to think she can just be better without help. It’s going to be work, so much work, to feel normal, or approaching it. There will be days where she falls into bed, just to avoid the bottle, which she’d fallen into after Nuriel.

“Good.” Rose sighs and leans down, so they are face to face. “I need you and that big Time Lord brain of yours.”

“Of course. Can’t be my good looks you’re after.” The deep sigh that leaves her makes the blonde giggle.

“Well, I wouldn’t kick you out the bed if it came to that.”

 _Oh_.


End file.
